Where the women aren't

More than 100 years ago, a former servant girl opened her first beauty salon in Rochester, N.Y. Martha Matilda Harper built that storefront into a network of 500 salons worldwide, encouraging other working-class women to own their own businesses.

For creating this army of female salon owners, Ms. Harper is credited with inventing business-format franchising.

But despite her lead, women have not been great beneficiaries of the franchising model. Today only 9% of all franchises are owned by women. Another 16% are co-owned by women and a male partner, according to a 1999 U.S. Small Business Administration study conducted by Women in Franchising Inc., a Chicago consulting firm.

That's mainly because women still don't have access to the kind of capital it takes to buy a franchise. And often the contracts are so stacked in the franchiser's favor that many decide to start a business from scratch instead.

"Women don't want to be on the hook," says Susan P. Kezios, president of Women in Franchising, which she started after seeing franchise companies take advantage of women and minorities, assuming they lacked business savvy. "Franchise companies used to see women and minorities as easy prey."

THE 'F' WORD

Women have made inroads in recent years, such as the success of the Curves International Inc. fitness chain, which has 25% of the U.S. health club market. Women own 90% of the nation's 7,400 Curves franchises.

But the problem of access to capital is evident in the types of franchises women buy. About 42% choose franchise units that cost less than $75,000, according to the SBA study. The majority of franchise units in the survey cost more than $250,000. But only 6.7% of those were owned by women.

Another problem is that few women are aware of the franchising options beyond retail and fast food, both of which are expensive, time-consuming and fraught with horror stories of franchisee relations gone bad, says Susan Black-Beth, director of franchising for Super Wash Inc., a chain of self-serve car washes based in Morrison in northwest Illinois.

"Franchising is thought of as the dirty "F" word, and it shouldn't be," says Ms. Black-Beth, who is co-chair of the Chicago Women's Franchise Network. "People think McDonald's and Subway, but there are 1,498 of the rest of us who don't run our franchises like that." Ms. Black-Beth is referring to the fact that there are 1,500 franchise companies in the U.S.

Janet Asbury, a 35-year-old former software saleswoman, decided she'd rather control her own destiny than wait out the uncertainty of a changing industry. So early this year she started Handyman Matters Chicago, a home-improvement business. Ms. Asbury, the first woman to buy a Handyman Matters franchise, paid $60,000 for two territories in the city. She bought the territories in January and launched the business in March. She now employs four full-time craftsmen and says revenues have topped $100,000 this year.

For her, deciding to buy a franchise was a matter of having the time and money. "It's really more that than your gender," she says.

FERTILE MARKET

Chicago is a more fertile women's market than most. The Women's Franchise Network events here are particularly well-attended, Ms. Black-Beth says. And Patrick Moriarty, whose FranNet business in Libertyville matches prospective franchisees with franchisers, sees a larger than average percentage of women asking questions, and buying.

That may be in part because Illinois is one of the top four states for franchise-related employment and payroll, according to a study by the International Franchise Association.

To further bridge the gap in Illinois and elsewhere will require more education, more lending opportunities and more visionaries like Ms. Harper.